Be Sorry and Get a Grip!

               

I couldn’t move.  I was lying on the queen size camp bed in Curry Village after a mad dash up Half Dome in Yosemite.  My husband treats every hike like a race, so we’d scrambled up and back in seven hours.  Ouch.  After a shower, a beer, and half a pizza, I was done using my legs.  So I was on the bed listening through the canvas walls to other people arrive.

It was clear from the conversation around our tent cabin that we were in the middle of a group that had arrived for a long weekend together.  Some knew each other well, and some were meeting for the first time.  It was mostly families with elementary aged kids.    

When I’m not around my kids, I pay closer attention to how other parents talk to their kids.  Most of the time it makes me feel guilty, because either I hear someone who is infinitely more patient and creative than I am, or I can hear myself in the yammering, scolding, and lecturing of other moms.    

I couldn’t see her, but I heard the voice of a particularly perky mom who didn’t seem to know anyone else in the group very well.  She arrived and introduced her daughter to a potential playmate named Sidney.  The entire conversation went something like this.  “Hi, you must be Sidney.  This is Emmeline.  Are you seven?  Oh, only six.  You must be going into first grade then, yes?  Emmeline is going into second grade.  This summer Emmeline spent most of her time on the swim team, so she is very excited to go in the pool here.  Have you been in yet?  Oh, well, maybe tomorrow, the two of you can go in together.  Sidney, why don’t you show Emmeline your cabin?”

As the two girls skipped off together, the competition continued.  “I think I’m taller,” said Sidney. 

“Maybe, but this ground is slanted,” said Emmeline, “We could get my mom to measure us.”

“Do you like Taylor Swift?” asked Sidney. 

“I have all her songs memorized,” said Emmeline.

“Oh, well, I saw her in concert,” said Sidney.  “I got a shirt.”

“I bet my mom would give us money for ice cream,” Emmeline changed the subject. 

“Okay, go ask her,” said Sidney.

By this time, Perky Mom was sharing her competitive cheeriness with other members of her group, and Emmeline went back to her tent cabin on her own.  She was struggling with getting the key in the lock when her mom showed up, and the monologue began again, “Emmeline, why are you back?  Where’s Sidney?  What are you doing?  You should give me the key.”

“I’m doing it myself, Mom.  I need money for ice cream for me and Sidney.”

“But you’re not doing it right.  If you want ice cream, you need to give me the key.”

“No, I can do it.”

After several more exchanges, Perky Mom shouted, “Emmeline, you’re going to get a time out.  A WHOLE LOT OF TIME OUTS!  Do you want to spend your whole weekend on time outs?” (Sure, Perky.  Like you can enforce that.)

“No, but I can do it.”

“EMMELINE, you need to BE SORRY and GET A GRIP!  Give me the key.  You don’t sound sorry at all.”

At this point, Perky Mom yanked the key away from Emmeline, opened the door, and handed her five dollars.  “Go get ice cream and bring me the change.”

Emmeline won!  She got ice cream.  Go Emmeline! 

But seriously, be sorry and get a grip??  I’d like to get some mileage out of that one.  Many many times I have wished my kids would cough up some repentance and buy a clue.  Perky Mom may be socially competitive, make idle threats, and cave under pressure, but she can spin a phrase.  Maybe it’s evil, but I am so relieved when I hear other moms lose it or flail when they’re dealing with their kids.  It makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.

It’s too bad I couldn’t move my legs.  Otherwise I would have offered to buy Perky Mom a drink, so we could commiserate on what we wish our kids were, what we tried to make them out to be, and how impossible it is to keep our tempers in check, especially on vacation.  Maybe we could both be sorry and get a grip!   And then we could finally relax. 

What’s The Matter With Martha?

I used to want a housekeeper. I used to be infinitely jealous of women who could afford to have someone else clean their bathrooms, mop their kitchen floor, and scrub their sinks. This was until I had one of my own. Well, I didn’t really “have” her; my mom sent her to me. Whether this was to dangle a golden carrot in my face or encourage me to sweep more often, I can’t say. But Carol came, soft-spoken, tidy, and determined, armed with a battalion of mops and a remote control vacuum. Several hours later, I returned home to paradise. How lovely, I thought. Several friends were coming over that afternoon and finally, I’d have a clean house to share.

Come they did, and together we had a grand total of thirteen kids under six. Less than half an hour after Carol left, five boys who had been digging in the mud, ran bellowing through my kitchen, up the stairs, across the carpet, and into the boys’ room where they crammed themselves into a closet, shaking dirt clods onto the clothes and toys. My friend’s toddler discovered an abandoned, half-drunk can of apple juice, which he spilled in a long slow stream from the coffee table, down the hall, and into the kitchen. On any other day, I’d have casually mopped up the apple juice and handed my boys the vacuum when their friends left. But today, I turned into a neurotic clean freak, chasing down and scolding the boys, and tracking the toddler with a soapy dishtowel. This is why I shouldn’t have a cleaning lady. I don’t want the emotional investment I have in a clean house to be a barrier to hospitality.

Did you know the Bible actually has a neatnik? The much maligned Martha of Bethany, sister to Mary the Mellow and Lazarus the Resurrected. In the gospel of Luke, we read that Martha invited Jesus to stay with her family. While she cooked and cleaned, Mary sat and listened to Jesus. Frustrated, Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Jesus responds (Luke10:41-42), “Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Whenever we hear the story of these sisters, it’s usually hailing the grace and virtue of Mary, her attention to Jesus, her knack at prioritizing, and her tolerance for burned food and a messy house. Martha is condemned as the busy big sister, the control freak, the perfectionist who couldn’t “let go and let God.” This has always bugged me. I’m kind of annoyed that Martha gets the raw end of the theological deal. No one applauds her efforts, compliments her fig and honey compote, or admires her clean, plank wood floors. It’s as if she only made it into the text because we needed a bad example. No one seems to remember that she initiated the hospitality, and is doing her best to welcome the Son of God into her home.

What we fail to understand when we revere Mary and disparage Martha is Jesus wasn’t criticizing what either of them was doing. He chastises Martha for her derogatory comments about her sister, not for making him dinner. Jesus doesn’t say the details that concern Martha don’t need to be taken care of, but that the value she places on them is too high. She is so caught up in being a hostess that she has forgotten her guest.

We don’t live in a “Mary” world. As moms, we are “Marthas” by necessity. We can cook dinner, help with homework, fill a juice cup, nurse a baby, and listen all at the same time. Try to be like Mary and your laundry will pile up, cockroaches will move into your kitchen, and your kids will get rickets. Jesus is not suggesting that we quit doing what needs to be done so we can sit around thinking about God, but that we regard the essential details of our lives with a heavenly perspective.

Later in the Bible, Martha gets it right. When her brother dies, Jesus is the first person she turns to, the one she runs out to meet (while Mary, ironically, stays at home), boldly proclaiming her faith in spite of overwhelming grief. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God,” she says in John 11:27.

Let’s be like Martha, faithfully listening and responding to to the gentle voice that warns us not to be so caught up in the minutiae of life, that we forget the Life Giver. I don’t want to get to heaven and have God ask me why I was worried and upset about the details.